Wednesday, November 17, 2010

The over-riding reason for William and Kate’s decision to spend their first few years of married life in remote North Wales, instead of in a royal residence, is that it will give them the privacy they will never know again.

The couple have already been living as man and wife for several months on the island of Anglesey, where William is based at RAF Valley as a Sea King search and rescue pilot – although Kate ostensibly kept on her childhood bedroom at her parents’ house in Bucklebury, Berkshire.

They are currently staying in a rented whitewashed farmhouse for which William pays £750 a month, and sources say there are no immediate plans to move.

Clarence House has already sought legal help in protecting the location of their love-nest – we are even barred from saying how many bedrooms it has – but it is well off the beaten track with stunning views of Snowdonia and access to a private beach.

The couple have used the property as a base to explore the island.

Several pubs and restaurants have become regular destinations, including the award-winning White Eagle at Rhoscolyn on the north western tip of Anglesey.

The couple have been seen gunning along the quiet country lanes on William’s red and white 180mph Ducati superbike.

There have also been frequent trips to the Tesco supermarket in Holyhead.

When in London the couple will have the use of an apartment at Clarence House.

And after William finishes his three-year stint with the RAF he and Kate are expected to move into a six-bedroom house his father has had built at Harewood Park in Herefordshire.

Situated in prime countryside between Monmouth and Ross-on-Wye, the 900-acre estate was bought by the Duchy of Cornwall, which provides Prince Charles with his annual income, in 2000.

In line with his father’s green principles, William’s new home has been built with every eco-friendly mod con available, including a reed-bed sewage system, wood chip boiler, solar panels and walls lined with insulating sheep’s wool. Read Full Story

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Facebook unveiled "Green on Facebook,"
a page dedicated to spreading environmental awareness and other "green"
news, and in tandem announced its participation in the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign
(DESC), a nonprofit coalition of large technology companies and trade
groups designed to solving the problems of environmental degradation and
energy consumption. It's organized by the Information Technology
Industry Council.

Facebook is the latest digital giant to join the Digital Energy Solutions Campaign (DESC), a nonprofit launched in 2008 that brings together leaders in the information technology industry to work on environmental and energy consumption issues. The social network joins Intel, Verizon, Sony, Cisco, AMD, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard in the campaign, which works on sustainable best practices for large technology companies.

So why did Facebook join? "Our ongoing philosophy has been to improve the efficiency of our infrastructure and we continue to invest tremendous resources to improve our own operations," says Jonathan Heiliger, Vice President of Technical Operations at Facebook, in a statement. "By creating and sharing innovative technology solutions, we hope to help raise the visibility of the importance of environmental sustainability across all industries."

And let's not forget that Facebook needs to save face--the network came under fire this year for relying on coal power at its new Pineville, Oregon data center.

That's not to say Facebook isn't making some genuine attempts at sprucing up its environmental practices. As part of its DESC announcement, the company launched the "Green on Facebook" page, which highlights the company's "efforts to be a green and sustainable global citizen." So far, that includes Facebook's data center energy saving techniques, as well as environmental initiatives from a number of other companies. At the very least, the page might actually get large numbers of Facebook users (nearly 10,000 people have "liked" the page so far) excited about dry environmental topics--such as data center management. Source: Fastcompany